enforcement

Recently 75 children shopped for holiday gifts with Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr., Sheriff’s deputies and officers from area law enforcement agencies for a day filled with the holiday spirit and giving.

Sheriff Clarke first became aware of the event while he was visiting family in Green Bay and he saw the nationally acclaimed “Shop with a Cop” program advertised in a local newspaper. The program builds positive relationships among law enforcement officers and young people in the community. In 2007, Sheriff Clarke started the program in Milwaukee County.

The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office reached out to the Milwaukee-area business community and successfully secured funding for the program for its sixth year. Donations will allow children from the Boys and Girls Club, Neighborhood House, Hillside Family Resource Center, Frank Lloyd Wright School, and South Milwaukee Human Concerns to enjoy breakfast and a day of holiday shopping with a law enforcement officer.

Each child (ages 5-13) was paired with a law enforcement officer. They boarded a charter bus and headed to the Sheraton Milwaukee Brookfield Hotel for a catered breakfast and then to Walmart. At Walmart, the children were able to purchase up to $100 worth of gifts for family members and themselves. After shopping, they headed to the Pieper Boys & Girls Club where a volunteer team wrapped their gifts while the kids took pictures with Santa and enjoyed pizza and entertainment provided by volunteers from American Enterprises International.

This year, Milwaukee County Sheriff’s deputies were joined by City of Milwaukee, Bayside, Fox Point, Hales Corners, South Milwaukee, Whitefish Bay and UWM police officers, along with officers from the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, Veterans Affairs Police, and Wisconsin State Fair Park Police.

“This is a great opportunity to make a child’s holiday a little brighter,” said Sheriff Clarke. “If we influence children early, we can forge a positive perception of law enforcement officers that will last a lifetime.”

Waukesha/Milwaukee (October 24, 2012) – Victims of domestic abuse deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Whether it’s a law enforcement response, treatment of a story by the media, handling of a case by the courts, or the way that friends, family, co-workers and employers respond to disclosures of abuse, we have an opportunity to help. As a community we can support victims and encourage their safety by acknowledging the injustice of the violence and sending the message that they are not to blame. We must understand their strategies for surviving abuse within the context of the abusers’ tactics. Our focus should be on the perpetrators and holding them accountable.

With this in mind, Sojourner Family Peace Center and the Waukesha Women’s Center ask that the media stop playing the recording of the Domestic Abuse Injunction hearing during which Zina Haughton asked for a final restraining order against Radcliffe Haughton. This type of reporting discourages other victims in our community from coming forward. We understand that the recording is part of the public record, but we ask the media to consider that the negative consequences outweigh the value of playing it. Continuing to play it is unacceptable.

The public discourse about domestic violence as a result of the Brookfield mass shooting is important and must continue. We are concerned about messages that assert that employers should release victims or forcing victims to take time off as a strategy for making the workplace safer. For many years, advocates for victims of domestic abuse have been educating employers about recognizing warning signs and responding to safety concerns at work. Punishing victims who disclose abuse to their employers only creates more barriers to safety. This approach forces victims to keep silent, further isolating them, or risk the loss of income and potential financial independence.

Violence in families is an extremely complex issue. Those who hear Ms. Haughton’s testimony or consider the appropriate response of an employer without a deep understanding of abuse run the risk of misunderstanding victims, blaming them instead of the abuser.

We encourage employers to learn more about community resources, work to create a plan that will allow them to proactively respond to domestic violence in the workplace and adopt policies that make it safe for victims to come forward. We are dedicated to helping local employers in this process and welcome their calls for assistance.